


You clutch your hand to your chest

by zinjadu



Series: Skip a stich, change the story [2]
Category: The Banner Saga (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, I still hate this choice, POV Second Person, Rook POV, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-08-02 04:22:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16298075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zinjadu/pseuds/zinjadu





	You clutch your hand to your chest

You clutch your hand to your chest.  It is as though your heart has forgotten how to beat, your lungs have forgotten how to breathe.  Tears stream down your face, and you clench your teeth together to keep from screaming as her boat is lowered into the water.  She lies upon shields and weapons and straw, but in her hands is a sprig of flowers. She looks as though she is sleeping, but her face is too pale, her chest too still.

 

Only sixteen, you tried to protect her.  To keep her from the worst of the fighting, to let her hold in to her innocence.  But it had been chipped away bit by bit, then shattered when Onef tried to take her.  She asked for the arrow, for the responsibility, and you thought it was time. All children have to grow up eventually.

 

She never would now.

 

Never will you forget the sight of Bellower grabbing her in one giant hand and crushing her, never forget as the monster cast her broken body down on the ground like she was nothing.  As if she was not the light of your life, the very world itself to you. Without her, you wonder why you carry on. Why you do not throw yourself into the horde and let them tear you apart.

 

Iver turns his face away from you to watch the burning ship float until the current catches it and takes it away into the fog.  You pray she will find her way to her mother, that in the afterlife there is no terror, no cold, no want. That now, in some way, she is safer than she ever has been.

 

Dragging yourself out of the water, though the pull of the water and the weight of your clothes fight to drag you back.  How easy would it be to give up fighting? To let yourself be taken by the water and be with your family again.

 

You do not, and slowly you slosh out of the river.  If her death is to have any meaning, you will see that she did not sacrifice her life in vain.  One day, you will come to the end, when you can lay the banner down and know someone else will take it up.  But until that day, you will put one foot in front of the other, a dead man walking.

 

Silently, you take in the faces before you, the king of the varl and the prince of men who both turn to you in deference for the sacrifice you made.  Oddlief and her bow-women, ashen-faced but chins high. The clansmen old and new alike await your word. But no words come. There are no words left for what you are, for what you have become.

 

“We leave now!” Iver shouts, and everyone moves at his order.  The varl, your friend, regards you for a long moment but says nothing.  He places one large hand on your shoulder for the space of a breath before tromping away to see to the loading of the supplies.  Instead of joining in, you slink away and lean against a mighty tree on the shore. You lean against it, the rough bark digging into the skin of your face, and you cry like a broken-hearted child.


End file.
